VoLTE

Voice over LTE (VoLTE) is the next big thing. In fact, in 24 months, virtually all LTE enabled smart phones will support it. Curious?

Small Cells

Small Cells, previously known as 'femto' or 'pico' cells are possibly a savior to network operators. They offer capacity and coverage to the end user and are inexpensive for the network operator. Why aren't they everywhere?

Public Safety

I admit, I’m slightly geeky, this seems like Friday fun to me, and more interesting than watching NASCAR but to each their own…Someone at Ericsson woke up on the good side of the bed the other day. The key points to me were 19Mbps @ 435Mph, from a jet. That’s a good day to be an [...]

I admit, I’m slightly geeky, this seems like Friday fun to me, and more interesting than watching NASCAR but to each their own…Someone at Ericsson woke up on the good side of the bed the other day. The key points to me were 19Mbps @ 435Mph, from a jet. That’s a good day to be an RF guy. I get a kick out of these things…

BTW, I doubt this is truly the first test, many of you don’t turn your electronics off in the airplanes since we hear them ringing at 10K feet. Busted!

Geeky LTE salaciousness:

The Doppler effect, which limits how fast the user can move in a straight line to or from the LTE radio base station, was successfully tested and internet connectivity was maintained while flying at more than 600km/h in a straight line toward the LTE radio base station. A seamless handover from one radio base station to the next was possible while flying at a speed of 500km/h, without any visible disturbances to a video stream used to monitor the stability of the internet connection.

What happens with an internet connection via LTE/4G on board of a jet plane flying 700km/h? Ericsson’s tests reveal that 4G is robust enough to handle extreme situations.

4G is the fastest developing system in the history of mobile communication. Today’s LTE networks are capable of providing speeds of over 100Mbps.

Consumers in high-speed trains around the world need reliable 4G connections without any interruptions and Ericsson needs to make sure its network equipment supports this requirement. This was the inspiration for tests that went above and beyond anything Ericsson has done before.

“We continuously evaluate our systems and this was a good opportunity to test a 4G network in Sweden. The commercial network used for the tests was not altered for extreme mobility testing. Our radio and core network products proved to be robust and it was very interesting to see how well these performed.”

For the tests, a routine flight with a training jet from Saab Aeronautics carrying two Ericsson engineers with PCs fitted with LTE dongles, took off in Linköping, Sweden. While flying over Västervik at 300 meters above ground, measurements were taken to determine the impact of the Doppler effect, handover performance and video stream stability.

The results showed that the PCs were able to connect to the internet with a maximum downlink speed of 19 megabits per second while flying at 700km/h and with the force of 4G.

The Doppler effect, which limits how fast the user can move in a straight line to or from the LTE radio base station, was successfully tested and internet connectivity was maintained while flying at more than 600km/h in a straight line toward the LTE radio base station. A seamless handover from one radio base station to the next was possible while flying at a speed of 500km/h, without any visible disturbances to a video stream used to monitor the stability of the internet connection.

When the test was completed, there was a sense of achievement but preparations are already underway for further tests at even higher speeds. As the saying goes: The sky is the limit!

“We are very pleased with the results from this test,” says Per Narvinger, Head of Product Line LTE at Ericsson. “Ericsson’s standard radio and core network products were used in the network that was in commercial service and there were no problems to connect from the aircraft.”

About LTE

LTE is the global standard for the fourth generation of mobile broadband (4G), supported by all major players in the industry. It is the fastest developing system in the history of mobile communication.

Today’s LTE networks are able to provide speeds over 100Mbps. The technology allows for speeds in excess of 300Mbps and Ericsson demonstrated the next step of LTE at MWC 2010, with speeds up to 1.2Gbps

Currently 105 LTE operators has launched commercial services, 11 of these are LTE-TDD deployments and the rest is LTE-FDD. 299 operators have publicly committed to the technology across 93 different countries with a large number of LTE trials currently in operation.

In the first year of rollout 150 million people had access to LTE networks, and today 455 million people have access to commercial LTE networks.

Ericsson’s Traffic and Data report predicts that by 2017 half of the world’s population will be covered by LTE/4G networks. Smartphone subscriptions will number around three billion in 2017 – compared to 700 million in 2011.

Ericsson predicts that 85 percent of the world’s population will be covered by high-speed mobile internet in 2017 and mobile data traffic will increase 15-fold between 2011 and 2017.

Ericsson is the world’s leading provider of communications technology and services. We are enabling the Networked Society with efficient real-time solutions that allow us all to study, work and live our lives more freely, in sustainable societies around the world.

Our offering comprises services, software and infrastructure within Information and Communications Technology for telecom operators and other industries. Today more than 40 percent of the world’s mobile traffic goes through Ericsson networks and we support customers’ networks servicing more than 2.5 billion subscribers.

We operate in 180 countries and employ more than 100,000 people. Founded in 1876, Ericsson is headquartered in Stockholm, Sweden. In 2011 the company’s net sales were SEK 226.9 billion (USD 35.0 billion). Ericsson is listed on NASDAQ OMX, Stockholm and NASDAQ, New York stock exchanges.

Again, This seems more interesting than watching NASCAR but to each their own… NASCAR fans, that was HANDOVER not HANGOVER.

I have never read this book although I probably should, but it was funny in context of Self Optimizing Networks (SONs) and there you go. Ericsson and Nokia made announcements at this years MWC that were carefully crafted to be as different from each other as possible, yet when digging deeper into what details they [...]

I have never read this book although I probably should, but it was funny in context of Self Optimizing Networks (SONs) and there you go. Ericsson and Nokia made announcements at this years MWC that were carefully crafted to be as different from each other as possible, yet when digging deeper into what details they provide publicly they are very close.

Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN) went first and announced they are extending their iSON (intelligent Self Optimizing Networks) platform with SON for Core. As 3GPP SON standards go, the use cases they defined are currently mostly applicable to items like Radio Resource Management and so on, mostly applying eNB (radio) side. NSN is touting core optimization, which I guess in the LTE context would be sGW/pGW/MME. There are a few optimizations that you could probably make but note, elements like MME already have load sharing defined…There’s not many details of what gets optimized but I guess they could do things like automate provisioning, power down unused HW during low traffic, implement overhead load reduction strategies during peaks, change IP settings during peak times, maybe do some caching in control and user plane and maybe have per route IP settings. It’s not clear from their announcement. I’m not sure how the PCRF factors into this strategy either. Overall their iSON strategy claims 3G network integration and multivendor control capability too so obviously you have to be a 3GPP network to get this full benefit, so in the US T-Mobile (recently announced LTE plans) and ATT would be able to deploy. Their executive summary on iSON is here.

On the other hand, we have Ericsson that has announced that their approach to raising SON’s is to focus the sale on the SON Optimization Manager. Is it just me or is that circular/redundant logic? Anyway, their approach is to use this platform to control 3G and 4G radio resources. Since Ericsson acquired Nortel, I’m not sure if this platform is 3GPP only or if it extends into 3GPP2 (CDMA) land. Ericsson also mentions HetNets although they don’t say this is a small cell controller or coordinator per se, just a mention which is a bonus point for them. Here is a link to their white paper describing their SON.

In summary the Ericsson approach is about the simplicity of dropping in the SON Manager platform whereas the NSN approach is more about extending their iSON portfolio (NetAct) to the core. Either way these companies are entertaining with their high energy press release and MWC demos with lots of hype but a lack of detail that keeps us guessing. BTW if you were wondering, the iSON and Ericsson SON Optimization platform are not necessarily unique, the smaller vendors (market share) have this much capability and more. Just my $0.02.

I see a big problem with all of these Apple + LTE rumors. It’s not a show stopper per se but a really big hurdle for these rumors to come true nonetheless. Let’s see, I have a chart that tells most of the story. Examine this pie chart: (Reminds me of Ross Perot…) According to [...]

I see a big problem with all of these Apple + LTE rumors. It’s not a show stopper per se but a really big hurdle for these rumors to come true nonetheless. Let’s see, I have a chart that tells most of the story. Examine this pie chart: (Reminds me of Ross Perot…)

According to Article One Partners and Thompson Reuters research, Samsung and Motorola own essentially ~13% of the LTE patent pie. If Apple is claiming that Motorola and Samsung are not living up to the Fair, Reasonable And non-discriminatory (FRAND) definition for licensing 3G patents, what do you think will happen here? I’m not sure that a Qualcomm license pass through when purchasing the chipsets gets them off the hook unless they have worked something out.

Lots of people will be running around Barcelona for MWC claiming to have the iPhone killer in hand but I can’t help but think the iPhone killer will be time. At some point we’ll move on and find some other toy really interesting. In the mean time, let’s see how the FRAND IPR fight plays out.

Come on Robin, to the Bat Cave, there is not a moment to lose….Just as you thought Het-Nets and small cells were just going to be infinitely marketed and never deployed, the Small Cells marketplace is pretty much exploding leading up to Mobile World Congress (MWC) this year. Here is a taste of [...]

Come on Robin, to the Bat Cave, there is not a moment to lose….Just as you thought Het-Nets and small cells were just going to be infinitely marketed and never deployed, the Small Cells marketplace is pretty much exploding

leading up to Mobile World Congress (MWC) this year. Here is a taste of the activity that you will see in slide ware, on busses, billboards, booths etc…

WHOM

WHAT

WHY

Airspan has really an intermediate sized base station strategy with fairly compact Remote Radio Head (RRH) type of base stations. Airhop has an awesome SON solution and is looking for places to put it, so focusing on HetNets, er the useful integration of macro (big) cells and small cells is the test case to prove that today’s networks can actually evolve to something else.

Airvana showing off LTE small cells with demonstration in Barcelona

Airvana has been focused on Sprint CDMA technology. It will be good addition to the ecosystem to have LTE+CDMA small cells. Enterprise + Residential

Ericsson Acquires BelAir Networks.

Ericsson gains carrier WiFi and a HetNet product line. This is easily integrated into existing customers, thus I expect to see HetNets popping up at ATT, VZW, MetroPCS etc…

ip.Access launching E-100 hybrid WiFi and small cell.

ip.Access getting onto the carrier LTE/3G+WiFi offload RADAR with this launch. There are 3 announcements listed here representing this strategy. Market pricing should be better with this announcement.

Mindspeed purchased Picochip, and now has dozens of small cells in addition to T22XX and T33XX SoC

Picochip had some lofty ideas about where the market was headed while Mindspeed was grinding away in the low end. If balanced, this combination may actually increase small cell penetration. Enterprise + Residential products.

NEC launches 2 small cells with a Gateway

I suspect this is the result of a Japanese industry/governmental mandate but it’s interesting when a consumer focused company jumps into small cells. At Samsung I could never get management to get the long term vision. Enterprise + Residental

Ruckus wireless is launching a hybrid WiFi/carrier small cell.

Ruckus traditionally stayed away from the carrier radio space but is now incorporating a carrier radio component to their (small cell) SmartCell 8800. Very similar to what we did at Samsung and what Belair did. Lots of flexibility and low cost. Outdoor focus.

The Small Cell Forum has teamed up with the Open Mobile Alliance to establish a single API set.

API development has been a sore spot with small cells in general. This may create enough momentum to be useful.

There is a PCWorld story that is WRONG, mentioning that Airvana is suing Ericsson over femtocell technology. NOT TRUE. The only connection to femtocells is Airvana is suing because they fund their femtocell development (new lilly pad) with software and support fees (old lilly pad) from their EVDO boards installed into (formerly) Nortel CDMA BTS’, [...]

There is a PCWorld story that is WRONG, mentioning that Airvana is suing Ericsson over femtocell technology. NOT TRUE. The only connection to femtocells is Airvana is suing because they fund their femtocell development (new lilly pad) with software and support fees (old lilly pad) from their EVDO boards installed into (formerly) Nortel CDMA BTS’, and Ericsson decided to reverse engineer their software, developed it, installed it and stopped paying these fees. That’s it, nothing more than that. Just saying’.

Ericsson and Qualcomm just pressed that they performed successful voice handovers back on December 23, 2011 with VoLTE (Voice over LTE) to WCDMA handover using Single Radio Voice Continuity (SRVCC.) The significance of this is that VoLTE/SRVCC allows a good user experience while reducing the required radio components thus saving cost and battery life and [...]

Ericsson and Qualcomm just pressed that they performed successful voice handovers back on December 23, 2011 with VoLTE (Voice over LTE) to WCDMA handover using Single Radio Voice Continuity (SRVCC.) The significance of this is that VoLTE/SRVCC allows a good user experience while reducing the required radio components thus saving cost and battery life and of course answers the question, what happens when the mobile user, on a voice call, leaves the LTE coverage area. There is a back up plan called Circuit Switched Fall Back (CSFB) but it’s painful in terms of latency and reliability. Exactly what must have been behind the response Steve Jobs gave previously when asked when Apple devices would have LTE . The delay from the beginning of time until in your hands is availability of broadband processing that support these features for the mobile device. The networks are more or less ready with some exceptions that can be worked around. (Note, 3GPP Release 9 added emergency services including location, SIM less emergency calling and some other fixes like faster CSFB so it’s to the implementers to make it happen.) Oh yeah, Ericsson provided the radio edge network (EUTRAN) and core network with IMS and Qualcomm used their MSM8960 in a VoLTE capability demonstrating device. As Martha Stewart would say, “It’s a good thing.”

Strictly speaking this is not really LTE news, so I held off a long time on mentioning it…however since Ericsson is such a player in LTE, thought I might have a kind verb or adjective for them. My take is at best they may be buying out of some gaps/trouble at Sprint and buying [...]

Strictly speaking this is not really LTE news, so I held off a long time on mentioning it…however since Ericsson is such a player in LTE, thought I might have a kind verb or adjective for them. My take is at best they

may be buying out of some gaps/trouble at Sprint and buying some modest, I mean MODEST growth. Not sure what this does for Ericsson in year 2???

edit: Now we find out that octoScope and Telcordia have been working together in the public safety area. They hit a milestone of receiving some funding from DHS to develop lower 700MHz LTE devices with a voice focus….hmmm….maybe a little more interesting than first thought…

My spin on the proposed US $39B merger of ATT and TMO is that ATT primarily gets to sell iPhones to a 40M customers that didn’t have access to it directly, and can add the TMO PCS 1900MHz and AWS 2100MHz spectrum in ATTs existing portfolio of 700MHz/850MHz/1900MHz/2100MHz. The additional sites are only a minor [...]

My spin on the proposed US $39B merger of ATT and TMO is that ATT primarily gets to sell iPhones to a 40M customers that didn’t have access to it directly, and can add the TMO PCS 1900MHz and AWS 2100MHz spectrum in ATTs existing portfolio of 700MHz/850MHz/1900MHz/2100MHz. The additional sites are only a minor part of the interest from ATT. The CEO De La Vega mentioned today that the AWS would be used for LTE, thus the current HSPA+ (HSPA Evolution) use of AWS would cease and users would need to ensure their device could be updated to see 3G at 1900MHz, and/or replaced to do that and use LTE at 2100MHz.

Remember, Verizon played the 700MHz spectrum auctions very well and avoided having to deal with the lower 700MHz interference initially, has consistent channels/bands everywhere and gets to start with 10MHz channels at a pretty good price. ATT was not so tuned into this opportunity and has more variable 700MHz spectrum. At the moment they are purchasing Qualcomm’s unpaired upper D/E block chunks but that wont be useful for a while.

This is also more good for Alcatel-Lucent and Ericsson for upgrades but less good in the long run for Nokia-Siemens.

VoLTE

Voice over LTE (VoLTE) is the next big thing. In fact, in 24 months, virtually all LTE enabled smart phones will support it. Curious?

Small Cells

Small Cells, previously known as 'femto' or 'pico' cells are possibly a savior to network operators. They offer capacity and coverage to the end user and are inexpensive for the network operator. Why aren't they everywhere?